you relax the hand till the moment as you snap your hips into it, you roll your fist in a down upward motion, the puncch being a vertical fist. That's how and instructor of mine described it.while showing our group, he studied with bruce lee for a short time so I'm told.

there are different types of 1 inch punch, the type ive seen and in james demilles book you need to spend quite a long time meditating to build sufficient controll, you need a good understanding of chi and to be able to channel chi to limbs of the body and to give yourself a keyword to relax, this can be achieved in about a week, the physical training is considerably harder but no more important, you need to do various excercises tiger push ups,isometrics wrist exercises etc and to then develop the technique of the punch which is roughly as follow, if you are of fairly light weight you can let your knees drop and raise 1 heel simultaneously which places all your weight into the punch even though you havent moved or if you are heavy you can let your knees drop and swing your shoulders into the punch next you need to practice the correct hand positioning when droping your weight using the correct stance as described abovebring your arm up completely relaxed then suddenly tense on impace striking with the bottom two knuckles aiming to hit 2 inches behind the target, not the actual target the wrist technique this uses is difficult to master but can be done by practicing with a can of beans trying to make it move as far as possible once this is achieved the punch can be performed but it is quite usless just being able to do the punch as it is too overpowered and will result in the death of the person struck so the next stage of the training and the most tedious is practicing your range on a sheet of paper hang a sheet of paper about 6 inches from a wall and try to just hit the paper exactly so that you do not pass it, striking it at different angles untill you become fluent in landing snap punches exactly on the paper as you become better at this bring the paper closer and closer toward the wall untill finally you can punch the wall just making contact with your hand and not putting any force onto the target, this is how the control for the punch is achieved and when you have achieved this 30% power should be roughly your maximum power you should use for the punch as anymore will result in death depending on where you hit eg hitting the solar plexus with a full power punch will collapse the lungs and result in death but a controlled punch will just empty the lungs and allow the agressor to feel theyre lung collapse slighltly, the punch can only be used at full power on someone if they are holding a large book eg yellow pages or something the punch is never to be used full force directly at someone as it results in death btw this is a description of the punch and not guidlines to learning it do not attempt what ive described above withought a teacher or perhaps a very good book. I hope this helps you understand the mechanics of the punch [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/wink.gif[/IMG]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by karate-do:there are different types of 1 inch punch, the type ive seen and in james demilles book you need to spend quite a long time meditating to build sufficient controll, you need a good understanding of chi and to be able to channel chi to limbs of the body and to give yourself a keyword to relax, this can be achieved in about a week, the physical training is considerably harder but no more important, you need to do various excercises tiger push ups,isometrics wrist exercises etc and to then develop the technique of the punch which is roughly as follow, if you are of fairly light weight you can let your knees drop and raise 1 heel simultaneously which places all your weight into the punch even though you havent moved or if you are heavy you can let your knees drop and swing your shoulders into the punch next you need to practice the correct hand positioning when droping your weight using the correct stance as described abovebring your arm up completely relaxed then suddenly tense on impace striking with the bottom two knuckles aiming to hit 2 inches behind the target, not the actual target the wrist technique this uses is difficult to master but can be done by practicing with a can of beans trying to make it move as far as possible once this is achieved the punch can be performed but it is quite usless just being able to do the punch as it is too overpowered and will result in the death of the person struck so the next stage of the training and the most tedious is practicing your range on a sheet of paper hang a sheet of paper about 6 inches from a wall and try to just hit the paper exactly so that you do not pass it, striking it at different angles untill you become fluent in landing snap punches exactly on the paper as you become better at this bring the paper closer and closer toward the wall untill finally you can punch the wall just making contact with your hand and not putting any force onto the target, this is how the control for the punch is achieved and when you have achieved this 30% power should be roughly your maximum power you should use for the punch as anymore will result in death depending on where you hit eg hitting the solar plexus with a full power punch will collapse the lungs and result in death but a controlled punch will just empty the lungs and allow the agressor to feel theyre lung collapse slighltly, the punch can only be used at full power on someone if they are holding a large book eg yellow pages or something the punch is never to be used full force directly at someone as it results in death btw this is a description of the punch and not guidlines to learning it do not attempt what ive described above withought a teacher or perhaps a very good book. I hope this helps you understand the mechanics of the punch [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/wink.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE]

Apart from the total lack of punctuation, you have managed to confuse what is a basic mechanical issue.

From your post there are a number of points made that I would take issue with;

"you need to spend quite a long time meditating to build sufficient controll"

In that case the technique is a complete waste of time. No-one, especially Ed, is going to wait around while you meditate.

"you need a good understanding of chi and to be able to channel chi to limbs of the body"

As no-one has been able to define Chi (Check out the energy section of the forum) your likelyhood of understanding it or channeling it are probably nil.

"give yourself a keyword to relax"

What for? Just relax.

"if you are of fairly light weight you can let your knees drop and raise 1 heel simultaneously which places all your weight into the punch even though you havent moved or if you are heavy you can let your knees drop and swing your shoulders into the punch"

Terrible explanation. Makes the mechanics as clear as mud!

"next you need to practice the correct hand positioning when droping your weight using the correct stance as described abovebring your arm up completely relaxed then suddenly tense on impace striking with the bottom two knuckles aiming to hit 2 inches behind the target, not the actual target the wrist technique this uses is difficult to master"

Not difficult, but as you've described it, will be more of a push than a punch.

"it is quite usless just being able to do the punch as it is too overpowered and will result in the death of the person struck"

This is pure garbage. The myth of killing people with a puch has been blown out of all proportion. People's bodies can take blows and ones far more significant than those delivered from 1" away.

"so the next stage of the training and the most tedious is practicing your range on a sheet of paper hang a sheet of paper about 6 inches from a wall and try to just hit the paper exactly so that you do not pass it, striking it at different angles untill you become fluent in landing snap punches exactly on the paper as you become better at this bring the paper closer and closer toward the wall untill finally you can punch the wall just making contact with your hand and not putting any force onto the target, this is how the control for the punch is achieved and when you have achieved this 30% power should be roughly your maximum power you should use for the punch as anymore will result in death depending on where you hit eg hitting the solar plexus with a full power punch will collapse the lungs and result in death but a controlled punch will just empty the lungs and allow the agressor to feel theyre lung collapse slighltly,"

More garbage. There are better ways of deloping focus in your punches and I would suggest a moving target as opposed to a static one.

"the punch can only be used at full power on someone if they are holding a large book eg yellow pages or something the punch is never to be used full force directly at someone as it results in death"

Who told you this crud?

It is rare to read so much unadulterated tripe in one posting. I suggest you train harder as your 1" inch punch is going to do remarkably little for you.

I don't know anything about the "one inch punch," but I do know that it is possible to kill with a punch (a tsuki, to be exact). Although it seems improbable for a punch from one inch away to kill, a student of shotokan can easily punch through to someone's spine if his technique is correct.

As a matter of fact, all techniques in Shotokan karate can kill in one blow in some way or another; it just takes a little inventiveness to figure out these applications.

There was a saying in Japan among Karateka: Ikken Hissatsu. To kill with one blow.